The Top Black Women in Higher Ed
By Tanu T. Henry, AOL BlackVoices
This Women's History Month, AOL BlackVoices honors 10 black women working in higher education. Each of them, by example, leadership and pioneering scholarship, broaden the parameters of higher education, inspire countless students and colleagues and elevate the standards of learning at colleges all across the country. Whether scholar or administrator (or both), these women represent the finest in us all, raising the ideals we value most to their highest exponents.
Lezli Baskerville, president, NAFEO
Lezli Baskerville is the president of the National Association of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), an advocate organization for 118 predominantly black colleges. Appointed in 2004, Baskerville brings lessons culled from a career of law and a life of activism to shake things up at the organization. Many NAFEO members complained that the organization lacked energy, vision and tactical planning before her tenure. A vocal proponent of affirmative action, she has worked in various capacities at NAFEO and, before that, worked in executive positions at the College Board, the NAACP and the National Black Leadership Roundtable. A gourmet chef in her private life, Baskerville is a graduate of Douglass College and Howard University School of Law. She lives in Washington, D.C.
Johnnetta Cole, president, Bennett College
Former president of Spelman College and current president of Bennett College, Johnnetta Cole is perhaps one of the most recognizable faces in American higher education. With her signature 'fro, commanding aura, endearing wit and straightforward observations, she is "sistah prez" to thousands of professional men and women around the country who look to her as mentor and guide. Born in Jacksonville, Fla., to a prominent black family, Cole's perspective is shaped by high expectations of herself and others, as well as a strong sense of historical realities. Trained in cultural anthropology, she studied at Oberlin and Northwestern universities. She has taught and worked at UCLA, the University of Massachusetts and Hunter College in New York.
Angela Davis, professor, University of California Santa Cruz
Angela Davis is the most controversial of our honorees. Blacklisted and arrested by the FBI for murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in 1970 for allegedly purchasing guns used in a prison shootout, Davis was later found innocent on all charges. But before her acquittal, she served a 16-month sentence and was fired from UCLA for her involvement in the criminal case. Born in Birmingham, Ala., to a well-to-do family and educated at Brandeis University and the Institute for Social Research in Germany, Davis' arrest sparked an international campaign of support. Today, her scholarship focuses on a wide range of human rights issues, including those of prisoners. She also delves into, and blurs the boundaries between, a variety of academic disciplines, from sociology and history to philosophy and political science. She lives and works in California.
Lani Guinier, professor, Harvard Law School
Nominated to head the civil rights division of the Department of Justice by former President Bill Clinton, Lani Guinier came to national attention in 1993, when conservatives attacked comments she had made in the past, on voting rights and the state of American democracy, as irresponsible and unpatriotic. Under pressure, Clinton withdrew her name from consideration. But that event has not softened her high-minded criticism of governmental policy or simmered her passion for justice. The attorney and former Justice Department staffer has written two books and numerous articles since, become the first tenured black woman professor at Harvard Law and remains popular on the lecture circuit. She now focuses a great deal of her attention on equalizing the admissions criteria at elite universities, including increasing quotas for U.S.-born blacks. Guinier, a graduate of Radcliffe College and Yale Law, argues that foreign-born or first-generation students from Africa and the Caribbean hold many of the slots that should be allotted for students who are descendents of former American slaves. Guinier's father Ewart Guinier was, ironically, a Jamaican-born Harvard student who left the school because he didn't have enough financial aid. The elder Guinier was also one of the university's first black professors.
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, professor, Harvard University
Scholar, theologian and author Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham is a professor of African-American studies at Harvard. Her work, which centers on religion, race and women, has been celebrated widely for its cultural insight and deep reach into little-known corners of American religious history. A trusted confidant of Henry Louis Gates Jr., head of the DuBois Institute for African and African-American Studies at Harvard, the two scholars are currently leading the largest African-American biography project ever undertaken in American history. A former professor at Dartmouth, the University of Maryland and the University of Pennsylvania, Higginbotham is also the author of the widely-referenced book, 'Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1890-1920.' Higginbotham, a graduate of the University of Rochester, Howard and the University of Wisconsin, is currently working on the memoir of her late husband, U.S. circuit court judge and Harvard professor Leon Higginbotham.
March 16, 2005